[Colorectal cancer: ten years of illusion of progress but advances are on the horizon]. / Le cancer colorectal : dix années d'illusion de progrès mais des avancées sont à l'horizon.

ABSTRACT

Recent years have basically been marked by a modest progress in digestive oncology. Biologic drugs such as anti-EGFR and antiangiogenic antibodies have improved the overall survival of patients with advanced colorectal cancer for a few months, but did not alter adjuvant treatment paradigms after curative resection of a locally advanced colon cancer or of liver metastases. With the exception of the RAS gene mutations, predictive of lack of effectiveness to anti-EGFR antibodies, our knowledge of colon cancer tumor biology has hardly evolved. Long-awaited novelties come rather from fundamental discoveries about the different genomic subtypes of colorectal cancer and new immunotherapy approaches which both announce hopefully real giant leaps in the near future.